I see King of the Craven, Cenk Uygar – he who, until recently, used to be a neocon – is leading the charge on DailyKos in the “Obama Caved” stakes regarding the budget.

The punditry of the Left has left me agog this week, but as it’s late where I am, I’m saving some brief ire tonight to fire firmly in the direction of Cenk.

His idiocy about Obama failing in the budget negotiations knows no bounds, and – as per usual – he has his sheeple following blindly, all polishing up their gratuitous criticism, which is de rigueur for anyone wanting admission to the Obama-Haters-and-Baiters Club, currently occupied by a curious conglomeration of Teabaggers and a certain species of so-called Progressives.

Yes, let’s blame Obama, shall we? Because we all know he could have done so much better at standing up to the Speaker of the House. I mean, look at everytime either of them appeared before the camera – the President, cool, collected and looking a bit weary and irritable in the way a perturbed parent does when presented with a spoiled brat to control. Then there was Mr Speaker, sweating and all aglow in orange preoccupation.

Of course, Cenk, we all know that the President should have just told Boehner and co to kiss his black ass (thus satisfying the desire of your ilk for the President to act in the ghetto manner you so knowing ascribe to your idea of his race’s behaviour) and walked from the room. The government would have shut down. People wouldn’t have received their Social Security checks or their disability or unemployment payments, Federal workers wouldn’t have been paid (many were even told there would be no back pay this time), the troops in harm’s way would be expected to fight for free.

And who knows how long this would have gone on … but hey! Ne’mind, we’d just have blamed Obama for that too. What was the alternative? Give in and defund the EPA and Planned Parenthood, for lesser cuts? At least the President held strong from the beginning in vouchsafing these two federally funded institutions, prime targets in the culture war initiated by the Republicans. Or doesn’t that matter to Cenk and his cronies? I’m beginning to wonder, especially since at least two high-profiled Progressive media bots have even likened rape to “hooey.”

Every week, there’s something new which some 24/7 cable big mouth has to use as a stick with which to beat this President about something else. As if they know better than the man at the helm. Cenk’s got room to talk. He so totally didn’t understand the President’s motives behind his dealings with the Egyptian revolution that Chuck Todd was despatched to his program to calm him down and stop him from embarrassing himself, in desperately trying to convince two guests that Obama meant the opposite to what he’d actually said in a speech.

Really, Cenk, do yourself a favour and go someplace else. Your Obama hatred is so palpable that people are seriously in danger of mistaking it for the wrong kind of prejudice.

And if you’re seeking to case blame and aspersion for this budget fiasco, cop this:-

Try blaming the Democrats first, because this is the 2011 budget which should have been passed last September, as you well know, when there was both a Democratic majority in the House and a bigger one in the Senate. But the fools on the Hill were all too concerned with hitting the campaign trail and trying to distance themselves from the policies they’d passed and on which they’d allowed, in their timidity and detachment, to be railroaded and spun pejoratively by the Teabaggers, that they seriously didn’t have time to pass this budget and punted.

And if that’s not enough for you, try blaming the voters; because it’s they who gave us a Houseful of Teabagging neophytes who’ve turned themselves into the proverbial tail that’s wagging a sniveling dog and a majority of only four Democratic Senators in the upper house, one of whom is Joe Manchin.

And better yet, Cenk, blame all your so-called Progressive friends, you know, the ones who listen to your rantings and whine daily about how much they hate Obama, how he’s done nothing and achieved even less, or – worse – how he’s no different to Bush. And how they took the advice of your friend and colleague Ed Schultz, who, on several occasions, implored the sheeple not to vote in order to teach Obama and the Democrats a lesson.

Yes, Cenk, you and all your cohorts should be made to remember those simple facts whenever you see Eric Cantor’s smirking face on camera.

Or then again, maybe you’re just a ratfucker who needs exposing, himself.

Ah, but TYT makes mistakes too. Their second string (Tina Dupuy, whom I do respect) finally came out with a piece on the HP/AOL merger, and it appears they’re backing the Empress. Here was my comment on their YouTube page:

“Finally some TYT position piece on the Empress Whore’s $315 Million sellout to AOL. Unfortunately, TYT sounds like it’s backing that emerald b****. I think the lawsuit is b*******, but as soon as I saw Arianna palling around on Newt’s yacht I saw her for the fake she is, and lost all respect for her.

“HP is a neocon mouthpiece masquerading as a progressive outlet. And so, it appears, is TYT. MASSIVE FAIL for TYT!!!”

Marion…thank you for putting into words what so many of us are feeling, and with out any apologies or excuses.

The pundits ARE a big part of the problem. They espouse a thought and everyone is supposed to follow suit. I for one, am just as tired of the supposed ‘left wing’ pundits as I am with the far right ones. They all seem to have their own agenda, and what is good for the majority of the populace IS NOT in their cards.

For me, I don’t really care which man,person, child, alien..WHAT have you…has the ability to bring this very divided nation together. Something DOES need to be done to bring us together, otherwise we will not survive and will indeed become a 3rd world nation.

SHIFT happens and it is happening right now, even though too many in our nation are not even aware it is happening.

I’ve spent the last few months seriously studying the history of the US from the last 100 years from the perspectives of a variety of folk, and what I have learned is nothing is as simple or even as complex as it seems on surface.

WE can change the trajectory IF we the people, actually put an effort into it…and ignoring the pundits is a good way to start changing the game.

The caste system is alive and well on every level.
The wealthy, the politicians on both sides, and the media.
No matter your position on anything, someone is looking away, beating their chest like a Silverback and roaring angrily to protect or expand his territory.
The bottom line: No matter which side you support, the overlords are telling You what You should want, who You should blame, who You should believe, and what is Best for You.
Problem: They don’t give a damn, don’t see you, and don’t want to.
Everything is ideology. No problem, no solution, just rhetoric and blame.
Are any of them on the streets? Hell no- they are in their sound-dampened studios seeing who can yell loudest, while carefully attempting to carve away a few more inches of the other guy’s turf, a few more numbers out of his ratings.
If you are hurting- you are just collateral damage.

I never miss an episode of The Young Turks. When I fill my iPod with things to listen to, I always put The Young Turks at the top of the list.

There’s a good reason why their show consistently makes The Best Of The Left podcast. There’s a good reason why they received the Best Political Podcast 2009 at the Podcast Awards and the Best Political News Site 2009 at the Mashable Awards. It’s because they do a good job and their show is excellent.

Oh? They, white privileged males, denounced all hate crimes laws as perversions of the First Amendment. They said, without batting an eye, that these laws “punished thought”. Rubbish.

First, they punish ACTIONS. Second -- ALL crimes go to motive. All of them.

If these Young Turks had ever once experienced what people of color and those under the thumb of the religious extremists had gone through, they MIGHT not be so smug. The reason hate crimes enhancements occur is that many racist thugs do two things -- terrorize entire communities, and are just crafty enough to do individual acts that in themselves are not serious but that are done over and over and over and over in a relentless drum beat of fear and intimidation.

I know. It’s happening to me. It’s happened to countless others. It’s exhausting, terrifying, and without much recourse if there were not these laws.

When I wrote the Young Turks to explain this -- do you think they bothered to reply? Or to care? It’s this attitude of complacent righteousness in defense of abstract principles THEY deem to be paramount that make them so useless. They believe they have “risen above” the rest of us, the “great unwashed” (a term actually used about working people and uttered to me by one of these sanctimonious pundits). Our concerns -- the concerns and ideas and actions of real people seeking real solutions -- are of no interest to them.

Listen if you like. It’s a free country. There is probably good stuff there. But understand that at least some of what you hear may be as elitist and disconnected from reality as anything the Baggers spew.

Our criticism of smug and disconnected progressives is equally free speech, equally as informed by principle, equally based on trying to find an authentic voice of change that works for everyone.

I wrote to Ana Kasparian at TYT of my concerns with their appalling lack of HP coverage during the AOL buyout. She responded within a day -- she certainly cares. Clearly she’s not a male, from what I’ve seen. And Jayar is certainly not white.

So many people are as tribal and insulated as the folks they deride, and as immune to criticism concerning the facts on the ground.

I’m a fan of TYT -- they hold the Dems and the President to the promises he made in order to get elected, which they subsequently abandoned in order to fit into the DC game.

Marion -- Thank you so much for writing this article. Minds may not be changed (or maybe they will), but there are many of us out here that are sick and tired of the so-called Professional Left. Although, IMO there is NOTHING professional about Cenk. If fact he’s a lightweight and I was really surprised that he got that spot. What’s with these right-wing turned progressives getting air time? And it seems that people such as Greenwald, Hamsher and Kos get all the invites. I never hear a sane pragmatic voice on these shows, unless he/she is an elected official. I sure wish you and others from here and a few other blogs would get some invitations.

I think you folks are fighting the wrong fight. I have reservations about TYT also for their piggy backing on the Empress’ fame, and I have written to Ana Kasparian at TYT about them. But articles like this exemplify the Progressives inability to form alliances due to their inflexible, self-righteous stance.

Politics is the art of the possible. Cenk and TYT are rising voices in the media, certainly better than most the pablum that passes for news analysis on the MSM. We should be building bridges to our allies, not hating on them for calling out Pres. Obama’s very real shortcomings.

The cable news host I trust beyond all others is Rachel Maddow. I have never seen her trash Obama, just to be in the same echo chamber as most others. She researches better than anyone else in the business and sticks to her liberal principles. She may at time question some of Obama’s decisions, (as we all should) but she does so respectfully and with reason and logic.
The day we cease to question authority, will be a sad day indeed, for democracy.

I agree, KT. Rachel is the best. The thing I don’t like is ranting. KO would get on my nerves sometimes when he warped into Rant Mode. The people on Fox all seem to be ranters to me and several on the left as well, including Ed Schultz, Cenk, Chris Matthews, Dylan Rantagain.

I liked KO, but I do agree that sometimes his commentaries verged on ranting. But his heart was always in the right place. I think that his special comments, were an emulation of the great journalist Edward R. Murrow. But one must be cautious when emulating someone. It has a tendency for the person doing the emulating, to lose their own voice.
Until Rachel came along, Keith was the only voice that would speak out against the crimes of the GOP. And for that, I am grateful.

Marion, you continually beat the same drum, but let me assure you, you CAN’T actually get into the minds of those you disagree with. You can’t decide FOR them that they don’t like the president because

a.) they are just plain garden variety racist, or
b.) they are insecure racists who don’t want an AA president who is “more intelligent than them”, or
c.) they are clueless, underexposed racists who had hoped that this president would be more like a “gangsta” and go Medieval on his opponents.

This is what YOU think. You have no way whatsoever of knowing that this is what THEY think. Maher made some dumb jokes to the effect of b.) above, and you extrapolate from there to assume that it’s epidemic.

Try this as a thought experiment: If EVERYONE you disagree with has an ulterior motive, then doesn’t that nearly indicate that EVERYONE with whom you AGREE also does? Otherwise, this would be quite a weird world. Then you could argue that people who like the president are kind of like “reverse racists” who are just so happy to have a black president that they really don’t care about his accomplishments, they just pay lip service to them.

I doubt you would argue that. Therefore I would caution you against generalizations in principle, as they can always be turned around to bite you on the patootie.

wts, you’re so eloquent, especially on the issue of generalizations. Always a slippery slope.

I realize my observations may be valid only in my immediate vicinity, but for what they’re worth, here goes: if we’re talking blue collar folks, I would have to say that fairly significant numbers of them here do not watch Cenk. Nor Bill Maher. Nor many other pundits. The blue collar folks in this rustbelt town seem to keep one eye on local politics, the other on their own household economies, and they hold national politics more as a running theme in the backgrounds of their minds.

They are so busy making a living that they have little time to parse every word that every talking head utters. In short, they are not much influenced by these people at all. And I think they would find long discussions of the motives of the pundits both boring and irrelevant to their lives.

When elections roll around, they read the papers (I’m talking about blue collar folks who are engaged with the political process at all), watch the debates, make up their own minds and vote. (Later addition: I’m not trying to make a value judgment here on the worth of Cenk’s commentary. I’m not knowledgeable enough about everything he’s said to be able to do that. The point more being, if Marion’s talking blue collar, identifying with blue collar, then let’s take a look at real blue collar, rather than theorizing from a distance.) I doubt that a large percentage of them even know who Cenk is. Or care.

Hi Kes,
I agree. I think that in any case, we are talking about a fairly limited audience for all this punditry to begin with.
I’m fine with people calling out Cenk, Maher, Arianna, Ed, KO, whoever, frankly. It’s no skin off my nose. I don’t love these folks. I like Michael Moore, and Thom Hartmann, because I have been reading their books for many years and consider them to have insights that go beyond election cycles. When they began writing and filming about the subjects they continue to write and talk about, I’m pretty sure they had never even heard of Barack Obama, much less had any idea as to his race.

I just really don’t like it when folks get slapped with what I feel are exaggerated and unsubstantiated charges of villainy just because they dare to be critical of this president. As they are not here to defend themselves, I feel it almost as a duty to stand up for them.

Yes, wts, and to scold some folks on the left for being “elitists,” while self-identifying with the “working class,” and at the same time not recognizing how working class people may feel some legitimate disappointment (not based on racism) with the administration, seems to me to be inconsistent. How many working class Americans were actually interviewed in the process of drawing the conclusions we read in this article?

There’s no pundit who appears regularly on cable that I regard as my guide and mentor. Like you, I respect Moore and Hartmann. But when decision time rolls around, I like “primary sources.” I like watching Congress in action and seeing/reading the candidate’s own words. Real investigative reporting, I’m fine with. “Opining” I can live without.

Hi wts -- I don’t think Marion is mind reading but reacting, as I do, to what is actually said by these “pundits”. Cenk is a neo-con turned progressive like Arianna, and it’s critical that we be skeptical of that conversion experience. I deal daily with people who slavishly follow Jane, Cenk, Bill Maher, and others and who never bother to figure out what is and is not “fact” -- even as we’d all agree that “truth” is illusory and deeply personal.

I was the victim of three of my Board members talking behind my back -- they’d not confront me directly because they knew I had done research -- when I supported the tax plan carved out before Christmas. They had decided, as Boomers who like to rant, that my organizational position should have been “shut it down”. While that occurred pre-Bagger, it is the old and highly shopworn DSoc mantra that posits -- have the system collapse, then we can rebuild it. Well, first of all, define “we”. WE, progressives (meaning those who do not buy into the corporatist mentality of just paying better wages and health care) are NOT in charge! WE don’t have enough of us, WE don’t control Congress, WE aren’t America’s majority. So who is this elusive “WE” who will “fix it”?

I am part, albeit reluctantly, of a new progressive movement in CA that exists for one overwhelming reason -- to have CA show the rest of America “how it’s done”. Oh yeah? When I left CA in ’81 maybe. Now? We’re so far behind we think we’re in the lead again -- because everyone else has passed us by. You want a progressive “message”? Listen to the unions, the working people, the families in WI, OH, IA, etc. They know what’s going on. We’re still having conversations around fine wine.

Marion hears the same people I hear. She’s also braver than I -- I don’t have HBO and don’t read FireDogLake or Daily Kos. I pay little attention to the pundits; she does, and she’s saying what they are saying. The echoes are powerfully the same in real likfe. I’m listening to the “leaders” in Sacramento and around CA who have not had a new idea in 30 years. And the old ideas never worked. You KNOW what they say about doing the same thing over and over expecting different outcomes? That’s too much of the so-called “progressive” movement. Too much magical thinking, too much ego, too much infighting and backstabbing. And we wonder why we can’t come together EVEN to sing Kumbayah…

There are clear voices -- Michael Moore for one. Don’t always agree with him, but he sees things differently because his base is blue collar. He speaks truth to power. But the pundits on TV and radio tend not to pay attention to working people, or at least not long enough, and they also do have different standards for Obama from ANY other president. Why did Ed call for Obama to be “on the line” with working people when we’d NEVER ask that of Clinton or FDR??? Why is that the litmus test?

In ’80 I was a teaching assistant at a major leftie west coast university -- and most of the students sat out that election. They were “too good” to vote for Carter. Well, Carter purely sucked, but Reagan was DANGEROUS. I was the 39th and 41st CA Assembly District coordinator for McGovern in ’72 -- and the numbers of Dems who would not vote for McGovern because he’d “betrayed” Eagleton was horrific. First, it was not true. Second -- you wanted NIXON??? That “too good to vote” or willingness to vote for someone so awful it made a thinking person’s skin crawl simply leaves me whomperjawed. I feel like Dr. Phil -- what WERE you thinking????

I know Marion beats the drum on these issues, but she’s right. This is dangerous turf these pundits walk upon. And we’re fools if we don’t look deeply at the real potential that we’re being played by the Right to snub our own folks on the Left. What’s WRONG with Obama’s being centrist in a centrist nation? What he’s accomplished is HUGE. But we will never see another progressive or even moderate policy if we don’t fight our OWN side’s ignorance and ego trips.

I totally agree with you -- the reliable person is Rachel. But she’s not the one many people hear. Too many of us have some dark need to be negative and to eat our own. We need the power and unity of the folks in Madison to direct us -- the goals and objectives need to be focused and obtainable, and even if they are not OUR issues, we need solidarity with those who are facing real cutbacks and losses. The April 4 work across the nation was AWESOME -- but who was out on the streets? Labor, a few real old-time lefties, and faith people. Did NOT see any of the secular progressives I know. Not a one. How pitiful.

So sail on, Marion! I for one salute your anger! I’m just as tired of pundits, and just as wary of who they REALLY are. You can’t be sure who’s the wolf until you pull of granny’s nightcap. I, for one, intend to be Thurber’s Little Red Riding Hood, not the traditional one.

Little girls aren’t as easy to fool nowadays as they used to be. Marion is living proof.

c-lady, I appreciate all that you write, and hope that we can simply maintain a healthy degree of respectful disagreement about this.

Still, I am very skeptical of, and leery of, all the unsubstantiated insinuations of racism. I think the point is less, as you assert, that Obama is being treated differently than Clinton/FDR, etc., than it is this: would these pundits, IN THIS CURRENT SITUATION, be behaving any differently were Obama a white man? Furthermore, is there any way of truly knowing this?
If Hillary Clinton had won, and our nation were basically in the same place it is now, would these pundits be saying anything different? And if so, would some people be accusing them of sexism, rather than racism?

My suspicion is that it would be the same (meaning she’d be getting the same treatment from the punditry), and the accusations of sexism would be flying around just as much as racism in articles such as this.

If my suspicions are correct (and of course we can never know this), would that mean they are both racist AND sexist? Or would it mean that we were jumping to conclusions about those with whom we DISAGREE that we would be less likely to jump to with those we agree with?

You know where I stand on this, and I don’t see much budging happening at this end. But I appreciate where you’re coming from, truly.

The blog Diversity Ink concerns itself with matters of race, and they put The Young Turks at the very top of their Heroes of 2010, saying “The Young Turks have set the bar high when it comes to tackling race-related stories.”

Hi Buddy, -- sorry, an entirely unrelated question: did you receive my email concerning banners etc from 2 days or so ago? No problem if you haven’t had time to reply yet, but I wondered if it reached you.

“The President must be greater than anyone else, but not better than anyone else. We subject him and his family to close and constant scrutiny and denounce them for things that we ourselves do every day. A Presidential slip of the tongue, a slight error in judgment — social, political, or ethical — can raise a storm of protest.

We give the President more work than a man can do, more responsibility than a man should take, more pressure than a man can bear. We abuse him often and rarely praise him. We wear him out, use him up, eat him up. And with all this, Americans have a love for the President that goes beyond loyalty or party nationality; he is ours, and we exercise the right to destroy him.”

Always an attack, never a solution. I’m glad none of these PL, frustrati, or firebaggers, are in the WH, because it wouldn’t take a fight over the budget to have the government come to a complete shutdown. They would have done it when HCR was being debated and the democrats didn’t have the votes to pass a public option. I always tell them to run for POTUS. This would give them the opportunity to realize firsthand that viewing things from the outside is very different than viewing them from the inside. President Obama said he didn’t like having to agree to these cuts, so, if they were president, what would they have done?

majii -- I ask the same question. I’m a solid single payer supporter, but what was the point of the drum beat when we had at best 85 of the needed 216 votes? The response I got was that we should just KILL health care reform until we can get it “right”. Well fine -- tell that to 30-plus million people whom it will FINALLY help. When it’s not your aches and pains and malfunctioning gall bladder, it’s easy to postpone reform! Every single person who told me that HAD health care insurance. Every freaking one.

Your rant is exactly why me and many Americans don’t pay attention to cable TV pundits. All they do is pontificate and rant and rave.

These loudmouths are exactly the reason why no one takes the left seriously. All they do is whine and complain, without giving any practical ideas or solutions.

The left are caught up in an ideological fantasy and can’t deal with reality. Reality being elections have consequences. The left sat out the midterms to stick it to Mr. Obama and the Democrats for not granting their ideological wishes, and got the TeaOP the House.

So Mr. Obama has to deal with them, amidst a government shutdown. What the hell was he to do, what magical ace could he have used to avoid shutting the government down AND give nothing to the House Republicans?

Most Americans are glad the government didn’t shut down, they don’t care about the actual politics of the matter. Yet we have the left once again whining about how Mr. Obama “caved” and “sold them out.”

Just like with healthcare, Afghanistan, the Gulf oil crisis, Libya, it’s always the same group of people complaining. They’re stuck inside an echo chamber of their own, which is why they should be ignored. Ask anyone outside of the blogosphere if they know who Cenk Uygr, Ed Shultz, Glenn Greenwald, Jane Hamsher, Dennis Kucinich are, chances are you’ll get many “Who?” responses.

Americans do NOT care about those pompous loudmouths, so let them rant and rave. Let them lose their collective minds. They’re just jealous that Mr. Obama has more popularity than they do.

According to the man himself (not that this should matter to Marion, of course), he voted for Al Gore in 2000. And that was the first time he voted Democrat. He’s 41 now, so he has voted twice for Republican candidates (Bush the Elder, Dole) and three times for Democrats (Gore, Kerry, Obama).

But this I have to share with you. I wish more people would study her and appreciate the work she did. She is a great example of “progress is progressive.” she spent years getting her voice heard an d laws enacted, never giving up.

Gov. Paul LePage ordered a labor history mural removed from the Labor Department in Maine almost 100 years to the day since the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire killed 146 young women. Featured in the mural was Frances Perkins, the first U.S. labor secretary. Perkins happened to be standing on the street when the first Triangle Shirtwaist worker threw herself from the 9th floor window rather than burn to death. Perkins was so horrified by the tragedy that she devoted the rest of her life to improving worker safety.